


Second Night

by edourado



Series: Hell's Kitchen Chronicles [31]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Drunk!Frank, F/M, Fluff, Oneshot, Romance, kastle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 22:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7592422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edourado/pseuds/edourado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt: Frank shows up drunk at Karen's door, and she's on edge, because she has dated a few unpleasant-when-drunk men.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Night

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the song from Mansionair

She tried to stop shaking while Frank worked on the rags that tied her wrists to the chair. He loosened them, placing the ends of the fabric on her hands, the length still around her wrists.

“We ain’t got much time, now”, he said, and he was trying to use a soothing voice. It was not working. Not for her, not for him. “They’re gonna be here in a second, and Imma need you to trust me. Ok?”

Karen breathed in and out fast, trying to calm herself. She nodded, shaking all over. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but we have to do this. We have to do it or they’ll kill you. It’s too many of ‘em, just one of me. We do this, we got a fighting chance.”

He crouched in front of her and all the gear, all the weapons, that skull on his vest, it was too much. It was him but it was too much.

“It’s gonna be quick”, face up towards her and she still breathed hard. “But you’re gonna have to make ‘em believe it. Can you do that?”

She felt the tears coming down and her fingers grab at the chair.

“Karen. Karen, look at me.” His hand was soft on her face, but his skin was rough. “I will not let them kill you. But you have to trust me.”

He took a gun from his back and placed it, ever so gently, as if she were a bomb he was trying to dismantle, under her right leg.

“When we walk out, you will untie yourself, you’re gonna get the gun, get in my car, and drive away. Key’s on the glove compartment. You hear me?”

She nodded, tears rolling away down her cheeks.

“Hey,” he got her face again and wiped the tears there. “I got you. I promise.”

She tried to control her breathing, but there was noise from outside the door, the sound of men shouting and walking fast, towards them. 

“Here we go”, Frank said, getting up, coming to stand on her left side, facing the door at her back. “Make ‘em believe you”, he whispered and she took one big breath, trying to calm down, when the door behind her, on the far side of the warehouse, garage, whatever, opened with a bang and she heard heavy steps and guns pointing at Frank.

“Lemme ask you this”, Frank said, loud, to the men. “Who was the genius that thought that some blond reporter tied up in a chair would make me work for you?”

One of them shouted something back at him, but Karen was trying to breathe to prepare for what was coming, so that she could do it right and not screw it up and get them both killed. 

“You do know the meaning of the word ‘source’, don’t ya? This right here? A source.”

She heard his gun cock and this was it, right now. From the corner of her eye, she saw him pointing it at her.

“You wanna talk to me, just say so, asshole. Don’t force my hand, I hate that shit.”

Frank pulled the trigger and Karen felt the bullet fly in front of her nose, landing silently and neatly on the sack of cement he had placed for it on the corner, a few feet away from her chair. Quickly, she dropped her head to the side and sat still, breathing in short pants, slowly starting to count on her head, imaging a clock, trying to follow the right rhythm. One. Two. Three. Four.

“So”, Frank said, and it sounded like he was putting the gun back on it’s place in his holster. “Now that we got that out of the way, we gonna talk or what?”

Ten seconds. Fifteen. Seventeen and the man said something again, Frank started walking towards them and she couldn’t understand what he was saying anymore, trying desperately not to move.

The door closed and she kept counting, kept still, her head hanging to the right. 

When her counting got to forty, she figured she should go. Maybe they would send someone to deal with her body, to clean up a mess that wasn’t going to be there. So she straightened up, untied her ankles - Frank had loosened them already - got the gun from under her thigh and got up.

By some miracle, she made it outside unnoticed. Spotting Frank’s car, she looked around and made her way to it, quickly, when she saw no one.

Closing the door silently, Karen leaned and opened the glove compartment. The keys were there, as he said.

Looking at the way she had to make to get out of there, she saw it was somewhat of a downhill. Putting the car in neutro, she lowered the hand brake and slowly steered the car towards the highway. She realized she didn’t even know where she was.

The gun still in her hand, she turned the car to the right and looked at the rearview mirror. Nothing. No one. She was clear.

Breathing out, she turned the keys, the engine roaring on was like the loudest sound she had ever heard in her life. Setting the gear to drive, she sped away, hoping she was going in the right direction, hoping no one came after her, hoping Frank… Hoping. 

.:.

The next day, one of her neighbors delivered her purse. 

“The bus boy said you left it in the diner, dear”, said the old lady from down the hall. “Been distracted?”

She smiled and blamed it on stress, brushed it off, thanked her and closed the door. 

It was all there, including her own gun. They had taken it from her when they caught her, along with everything she was carrying. But Frank returned it. Wallet, phone, keys, pepper spray, even her makeup bag. She looked for a note, a sign, something from him. There was, of course, nothing. 

She tried to call him. He was radio silent, not a peep out of him. His phone went to voicemail, but she left no message. 

.:.

It was on the second day - well, second night - that he decided to come out from his hiding. 

She was sleeping, probably had just fallen asleep, the report on the crime scene still on her lap, when there were loud knocks on her door and she woke with a start. 

Sitting up in bed, waiting to make sure she hadn’t dreamed it, Karen took a deep breath when, again, a bit hard,  _ knock knock knock.  _ She looked at her phone: 2:26 A.M.

She knew it was Frank - she hoped it was Frank. She didn’t really have many visitors in the middle of the night. Unless it was someone trying to take her away by force. That happened quite often. 

Tip toeing to the door, she looked through the peephole and there he was, already raising his fist to knock again.

With a small smile she didn’t realize was there, she unchained and unlocked the door to swing it open for him. 

Her heart dropped a bit when she smelled him, when she saw the way he swayed. 

“Evening, ma’am”, he slurred, walking past her and Karen felt her shoulders tensing. 

Her track record with drunk men wasn’t the best. They were, usually, small town men, and they could get nasty. She could only imagine what a trained ex-marine who’s an expert in every type of weapon and most of the combat styles could do with a few drinks too many in him.

“H-hi”, she said, closing the door, not chaining it back, leaving it unlocked. “Where have you been? I tried to call you.”

He turned around and looked at her, eyes full of something and she felt the hairs on her arms raising. His expression was hard, and she had seen that before. That look that wondered, created, and out of nowhere, something. Usually not good.

“Did I wake ya?”

Karen blinked and tried a small smile.  _ Be nice.Be good. Be careful. _

“I- uh… I wanted to, uh… Check. On you. See if you… You ok?”

He slurred a bit and swayed slightly to the side.

She nodded. 

“You?”

He chuckled, looking to the side. 

“I’m peachy.”

They stood there for a moment and Karen debated what to do. In her experience, it was best to steer the conversation towards neutral ground, something safe, nothing that could trigger a reaction. 

“Are you hungry?” she asked, sizing him up. Useless thing to do, she never saw the weapons on him, even when she knew they were there.   

“I’m- I don’t-” he started, but cut himself, suddenly moving, walking towards her and she braced herself for a hard grip on her arm, maybe a shove, something. 

She did not see the soft hands on her cheeks coming. At all. When Frank stopped in front of her, his fingers were careful against her face, his eyes soft. It was a stark contrast with the smell of vodka on his breath. 

“I was worried”, he said, voice very low. “I didn’t get you?”

Blinking at him, she realized he was talking about the bullet he had pretended to shoot at her. 

“N-no, I’m fine.”

“I saw your hair flying”, he said, a heavy hand on her hair, testing the strands against his fingers, thumbs on her cheeks still. “But I could still see you breathing, so I- But I thought maybe I-”

“Frank, no”, she said, raising her own hands and touching his forearms. “You didn’t get me, I’m fine.”

He clenched his jaw and analyzed her face, red eyes and he swayed on his feet a bit, taking her with him. 

“Good”, he said, nodding. “Good. Come’ere.”

And then he hugged her. A hand on her back, the other cradling her head, not for one moment crushing her against him and Karen didn’t really know what to do. 

“You smell nice.”

She let out a laugh, and it was almost an outlet for all that sudden tension. Deciding fast, she raised her arms and weaved them around  his neck, hugging him back, and he tightened his own embrace on her. 

“You’ve been partying?”

He let out that sort of awkward laugh and released her, walking to her kitchen and opening the fridge, sticking his head inside. 

“Not really, I- I thought maybe you wanted some kind of… Space, of some shit like that.”

She walked and leaned on the counter. 

“Why?”

He reached inside and took the bottle of vodka she kept on the very back of the fridge, behind tall stacks of leftover boxes and the water bottle. 

“I don’t know, because I shot at ya. Again.”

He uncapped it and looked for a glass. He wasn’t drinking straight from the bottle. Good sign. 

“You saved my life, Frank. Again.”

His eyes found hers, he looked for a moment, and then he shrugged. 

“Is that why you weren’t picking up your phone? Because you thought I was mad at you?”

“I’d be mad at me.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds and this was very new to Karen. This careful distance he was keeping, even with that tell-tale bottle on his hand. 

“I read the report on the crime scene”, she told him, slowly relaxing. 

He started, moved in place a bit, kinda looked around, and started towards the couch, dipping the bottle on the glass he found. 

“Did you get all of them?”

He sat on the couch with a groan, letting out a long breath, taking a sip of his glass. 

“Yep.”

She leaned off the counter and moved around a bit, wanting to sit by him, but still… Uncertain. 

“They could get to you again if I didn’t.”

Making a (perhaps not wise) decision that he was not going to become… Unpleasant, Karen turned to lock on the door again, but left it unchained. 

“And I know you, uh… You don’t like that shit, right? You’re like Red, you think I should just cuff ‘em and wait for the cops. Is this mint chocolate? Can I have some?”

Karen looked at the box of mint chocolates she had gotten from the food editor at the paper and then back at Frank. With a frown and a smile, she nodded. 

“Go ahead.”

“So I figured you’d be mad at me”, he said, unwrapping two pieces of chocolate at once and plopping them in his mouth. 

Shrugging, she walked to the couch and sat on the far end, a bit away from him. 

“I… They would have killed me.”

“Yeah.”

He looked at her and she raised her brows when she saw a smile forming on his face. He so rarely smiled it was always a surprise when he did. Especially when he was drunk like that. 

“Shit, man, good. You’re not mad, then?”

“No, Frank, I’m not mad”, she said, smiling too. 

“Good.”

“I should be thanking you. Again.”

“Aw, no, c’mon. It’s you.”

She looked at him and the smiled died down at the strange sweetness of that statement.

“D’ you want some?” he moved the box of chocolates towards her and she shook her head. “So you don’t mind if I…”

“Go nuts.”

He smiled again and unwrapped another one.

It might be stupid, and she should really know better, given her track record. But since he was not showing any signs of flipping out, she thought she should take this chance to get him to stop drinking. He had enough already, it was clear. 

“How about I get a sip of this”, she reached for the glass in his hand, praying he wouldn’t be mad. “And get you a glass of water, or something?”

She watched as he looked at the glass, took another sip and gave it to her. Karen got up, took the bottle from the coffee table and walked back to the kitchen. 

“Where d’you get this? It’s pretty good”, he asked, munching on chocolate. 

“Um, this guy at work gave it to me.”

She really should learn to listen, because he was big and brute, but he was trained to be stealthy, so she jumped when she closed the fridge again, turned around and there he was, standing behind her. 

He lifted his hands. 

“Hey, shh, just me.”

She was lost, here. Frank never got too close to her, if he could avoid it. But now he was drunk, and he wasn’t being unpleasant, but he was also acting strange, smiling, hugging her, getting this close. She didn’t know how to act. 

“So is he like a… Boyfriend, or something?” he asked. 

“Who?”

“Chocolate dude.”

“Um, no. Just a co-worker.”

"Hmm. He ever asked you out?”

She couldn’t help it. Breathing out a laughter, she shook her head.

“No. He’s married.”

“Why’s he giving you chocolates, then?”

“He won them from this bakery, he gave a box to everybody.”

“Hmm.” 

Again, they looked at each other and her skin was starting to crawl a little. 

“Do you want some coffee, Frank, or something?”

He nodded and ok. ‘Cute’ is a word she never thought she would associate with Frank Castle, but this was straight up cute. 

“Are you ok?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure? It’s not like you to show up drunk at my door at two in the morning.”

He sighed, reaching to play with a plastic bag on the counter. 

“Sorry. I just wanted to see if you were ok. I really did think I got your nose, or something.”

“My nose is fine. Sit down, I’ll get your coffee.”

She turned to turn on the coffee maker and get cups and filters and the coffee itself, mentally shaking her head, because sure, she had thought about Frank after they both had a drink or two, she had thought about the feeling she got when he looked at her like that, straight in the eye. He’s a handsome man, and he has a habit of saving her life, so she figured it was not too weird for her mind to go there. But that was a messy, messy road. Complicated and-

-there he was, too close again, but not menacing, like she had learned to expect. Slow and… Nice. 

She turned around and had to look up a bit to catch his eyes. 

“Why do you keep doing this?” he asked and she felt herself shivering. 

“Doing what?”

“Opening the door for me. Letting me eat your chocolate. Making me coffee.”

It was heavy, the air. She did not like the smell of alcohol coming from him, but that was the last thing on her mind, now.  

“I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t trust me. I’m not a nice person.”

“You are to me.”

He leaned towards her and that was a completely different kind of crowded feeling. She rather enjoyed this one.

"You are, too”, he said, his voice very low, still slurring a bit. “I feel good when I’m here.”

‘That makes one of us’, she wanted to say.  

Frank was looking straight at her, just shy of touching. 

“I kinda… Feel like doing somethin’. Don’t think I should, though.”

“What?” she asked, in a low voice. 

He shook his head lightly, never taking his eyes off her mouth. 

“I really feel like kissing ya.”

The smile she let out felt very high school. Very teenage on the brink of her first kiss. 

“And why do you think you shouldn’t?”

“Plenty of reasons.”

Still, he took the last step and his body almost touched hers. Dipping his face down, he touched his forehead to hers and she closed her eyes while he took a deep breath, moving his face slowly, his nose touching her cheek and she could feel his eyelashes against her skin.  

Since Karen knew Frank, she had only felt threatened by him once, the night Rayes died and he showed up to explain he hadn’t been responsible. Lasted less than a minute, though. After that, all she ever felt was safe around him. But she never thought of him as delicate. Never really considered that he had this soft side. Would never, in a million years, think that it would come out when he was drunk. 

And yet, here he was, standing in front of her, taking his sweet ass time deciding if he’ll kiss her or not. 

“You want me to go?” he asked against her cheek. 

“I’m making you coffee.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No, I don’t want you to go.”

He moved his face to run his lips on her other cheek.

“That’s the wrong answer.”

She breathed, tumbling her head back a bit when he reached her jaw. 

“What’s the right one?”

“For you to send me home and lock the door behind me.”

Her left hand let go of the counter and landed on the waist of his jeans. That caused him to move a tiny bit closer. 

“I’m a bit drunk”, he said against her face. “So I might be misreading the situation.”

Her heart filled with the most amazing feeling. He was so careful, so worried that he might be overstepping, so considerate of how she might feel about this. 

“You smell good”, he said, nose on her neck, now, and she wanted to lift his head and kiss him, but she was so enjoying this thing he was doing, where he got as close as he could, but not enough to overpower her. 

But she really did want to kiss him. So she raised her hand from his waist, up his chest, enjoying the way it felt, until it was on his neck and he looked up at her. 

“I still have to thank you”, she whispered and one corner of his mouth lifted in a charming, slow smile. Leaning towards him, she touched her mouth to his and he sighed, opening his lips, asking for more. “Thank you, Frank”, she whispered, her other hand coming to his face, cradling it against hers. “For saving my life. Again.”

He shook his head, slowly, and took a deep breath. 

“You came outta nowhere”, he said. “There was nothing, and then there’s you.”

Karen closed her eyes when his hands left the counter to touch her arms, running from her elbows to her shoulders and back down, slow. Delicate. 

“You said you felt like kissing me”, she whispered against his face and he did. He kissed her and suddenly she felt beautiful. Beautiful and, as Disney princess as it sounded, even a bit special. Because here was this man - tortured, damaged, traumatized, violent - who had saved her life three days ago. It hadn’t been the first, not the second. He saved her life and he gave her space because he thought she might be mad at how he did it. He was drunk because he was worried and he needed some liquid courage, and while she did not like men who needed alcohol to give them strength, this case was… It was so peculiar she didn’t even know how to explain it. 

And yes, she could taste the vodka on his tongue. But she could also feel the reverence on his touch. 

Kissing him made her feel treasured. Beautiful and desired. So the last thing she wanted was for him to chalk it up as a mistake. A lapse of judgement or something he did because of the booze. 

So she backed away. Kissed him a bit more, ran her fingers on his face and his neck, but pulled away. 

Frank breathed against her, his hands, on the counter, fingers touching her hips. 

“You never have to thank me”, he said before she could come up with anything. 

“Ok”, she said, pressing one more kiss to his cheek before pushing him off a bit, so she could turn around and pour the coffee on a mug for him. “I’ll come up with another excuse, then.”

She turned around to pour his coffee and, like an easily distracted child, he wandered off, opening her cabinets, looking for something, closing them again and walking towards the living room again. 

“There you go”, she said, giving him the mug, sitting by him. 

He sipped and he watched her, rested his head on the couch and she tried not to squirm or smile too much. 

“What?” 

“Maria would brade Lisa’s hair, right? And she loved it, she would go to school everyday with a different style.”

Karen smiled. It wasn’t always that he spoke about his family like that. 

“But then she got in her head that I had to learn how to do it, too. Don’t ask me why, when I asked her, she just said ‘You have to, daddy’.”

His smile made her heart clench a little. 

“That’s fair”, she said. 

“I guess.”

“Did you?”

He shrugged, sitting his mug on the coffee table after taking a big sip, reaching for her after. She realized he was trying to turn her around. 

“Kinda. Never like Maria. She was good at it, I just know this simple one.”

Suddenly, incredibly, somehow, Frank Castle was braiding her hair, and Karen couldn’t keep her smile in because  _ this,  _ she never thought about. 

“Fuck, this looks awful. Sorry”, he said and she took a hand up to touch it. It didn’t feel that bad, she imagined more tangles. 

“I think it’s good”, she said, turning to him again. 

And, again, with the look, those… Not puppy eyes, but… Puppy eyes. Like a mean, strong, bad boy puppy. Like his pitbull. 

It was like her response smile was automatic. He smiled, so did she. And he must have taken it as something good, because he pulled on her hand, and then her arm, and then they were lying down on the couch and he kept pulling until he had a leg over hers and her head was on his arm and her face was on his chest and he was hugging her tight, breathing in and out slowly. Karen lifted the hand that was not caught between them and held him back, because this was comfortable. 

“Your coffee's getting cold.”

He just hummed against her head and settled back against the couch, holding her against him.

With her nose buried on his shirt, feeling her toes against the material of her jeans, his back muscles under her palm, Karen blinked. 

The Punisher was cuddling her. 

And then he was moving, pressing her further into the couch when he reached for the coffee table. She heard the sound of another chocolate being unwrapped and he plopped it into his mouth, going back to hugging her to him.

“Do you wanna eat something?” she asked. “Other than chocolate, I mean.”

He didn’t say anything and she thought maybe he had fallen asleep. But then,

“What you got?”

Karen lifted herself and supported her upper body on her elbow, looking down at his face.

“I can make you a grilled cheese.”

He looked up at her, as if measuring her face. 

“Extra cheese?”

She smiled and - screw it - ducked her head to kiss him.

“Extra cheese.”

“Are you having one?”

“Um… Sure.”

“Ok then.”

She got up to make his grilled cheese, feeling weirdly excited, or light. Too light for someone who had been kidnapped for the third - fourth? - time less than a week ago. 

He sobered up slowly. Ate his sandwich, drank his coffee. She sent him for a shower and when he got out, skin cold and no longer smelling of bar, she had put a pillow and a blanket on the couch for him. But he looked at her like he was about to apologise, so she got up to her knees on her bed, where she had been sitting, reaching for him. He went easily enough, but his expression was not that soft anymore, so she pulled him by his neck until his face was against hers one more time. 

“Will you stay?” she asked when he dropped his shirt on the floor so he could touch her hair again. “To protect me?”

Frank chuckled and lifted his face to the ceiling, breathing in, and Karen very much approved the view. 

“Protect you?”

She nodded. “I have a tendency to get kidnapped.”

Looking back down, he ran his thumb on her cheek. 

“Not on my watch.”

He slept on her bed with her. She had never been cuddled so hard - or so softly. 


End file.
